Classroom Strategies for Bright Students

Today's post discusses classroom strategies for dealing with students who are ahead of the rest of the class and is based on an email we received from one of our PLD customers

Dear Diana, Many thanks for your wonderful PD the last two days. I forgot to ask about students who are clearly ahead of their peers. For example, I teach Kindy and have two students who can hear initial sounds already and are at the stage of Onset and Rime blending and one at CVC phonemic level blending. Do I try to keep extending these children or keep all the class at the same level so I can focus on the weaker students?

The challenge of catering for strong and weak students within the same class is one that is frequently encountered by teachers. You may get different suggestions each time you pose this question. There are two major strategies which may work for you:

1. To keep extending the strong students' skill base while focusing upon the weaker students
2. To focus strongly on their motor and oral language skills, while allowing their literacy skills to continue to develop of their own accord.

Know that their phonemic awareness skills are likely to progress rapidly and hence be prepared, if you chose option 2, to focus on reading, spelling and writing within your kindy class.

Once you open this "door" and step further in their skills parents will want their children's literacy ability to be catered for.